Gioni and Obrist revisit 'do it'

Massimiliano Gioni and Hans Ulrich Obrist teamed up recently at the New Museum to discuss do it, the ongoing curatorial project of instructions by artists for artworks exhibited as manuals that began in Paris in 1993 as a conversation between Obrist and artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier. "I think it's Richard Hamilton who once told me that we mainly remember exhibitions that invent new rules of the game," Obrist said on the panel. "And that's what Boltanski and Lavier and I said at the cafe, that we wanted to invent new rules." Read more...

Massimiliano Gioni announces theme for Venice Biennale

Massimiliano Gioni has selected a theme for his Biennale exhibition. It will be known as The Encyclopedic Palace, part of the title of a 136-story Futurist skyscraper imagined for Washington DC's National Mall by Marino Auriti a self-taught Italian-American artist. "It's the crazy dream, bordering between knowledge and madness, image and imagination...reflecting the grand ambition of this international exhibition," Gioni said in a recent interview. Read more...

Image: Massimiliano Gioni in Venice

Q+A with Massimiliano Gioni on his approach to curating and debt to curators past

In 2002 Massimiliano Gioni founded the Wrong Gallery, a three-foot-square space in New York's Chelsea district, where as he said "nothing was for sale." This led to prominent curatorial positions including the 2008 Berlin Biennale and 2010 Gwangju Biennale. He is currently the associate director and head of exhibitions and director of New York's New Museum and director of the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Gioni's latest exhibition, Ghosts in the Machine, is currently showing at the New Museum. Art in America caught up with him to talk about his unorthodox approach to curating the show and his debt to curators past. Read more...

Director of the 2013 Venice Biennale announced

The New Museum's Massimiliano Gioni has been appointed artistic director of the 2013 Venice Biennale. Gioni is a seasoned biennale curator. He curated 10,000 Lives for the 2010 Gwangju Biennale in 2010 and co-curated the 2006 Berlin Biennale and Manifesta 5 in 2004.